official Westworld thread

Those titles reminded me of DAREDEVIL actually.



Telling you, Netflix Marvel titles are kicking ass.

On the music:

At the risk of seeming perpetually contrarian, I liked the theme song. It's minimalist, but Djawadi has composed for lots of HBO stuff. After a quick peek on IMDB, it looks as though he composed The Rains of Castemere and a couple of seasons of Game of Thrones.

The modern music via player piano I liked considerably less, but I prefer the score to allow the action to remain in the foreground. A familiar pop song can undermine the narrative, particularly when it's a questionable fit. I'd rather have a good score tailored to fit the film.

Black Hole Sun sounded nice and old-timey coming from that piano though.

HBO has released episode 2 online early because of the Sunday debate. Smart move.

Episode 2 answered a lot of the questions I had about the functionality of things, while introducing new layers and deepening the overall mysteries. I like how they answered my question about whether anyone sees or cares about what Ed Harris' Man-in-Black is up to, with an even more intriguing response ("he gets whatever he wants"). I heard a compelling theory about that and the whole maze thing, but I'm not sure I want to get into Lost type of speculation so soon. Might as well ride it out for a while.

I love everything about this show except when the employees of the place do stuff in the factory/lab and talk with each other. Much of that has felt clunky in both episodes. I also don't love the writer character, though that's partially because he's written as such a jerk. But he's almost a little too obvious in his jerkiness or something.

Definitely lots of questions answered about how the place works. I'm probably a white hat guy myself. Also not sure I'd make if out of the changing room in a hurry.

Interesting that Bernard thinks the bots are being sabotaged and is sort of investigating that on his own. Both the man in black and Ford (Hopkins) agenda's are still too much a mystery to really speculate on. Although what Ford said about guests wanting to notice subtle things that nobody else has made me think he wants to build a town off-script somehow so every day is unique. Loved how Ford just said "no" to the douchey writer's new storyline. Although I did agree with the writer last episode that they would be better off stopping the upgrades, but I guess the company has its reasons. I suspect a Futureworld style conspiracy is being planned.

Totally accurate depiction of a large corporations staff. Both the people who were happy to push off a problem to another department and the two dudes trying to cover up what they thought was their mistake at the end. When companies grow large and expand quickly they don't always have the time/manpower to properly train or oversee people. We can see the cracks in the system growing bigger already.

I never thought I'd feel bad for a robot, but I felt bad for the madame when she had her nightmare which was of course re-living one of the many traumatic events that's happened to her. Only to wake up to a whole new traumatic event. Still don't care every time Teddy gets shot/killed though. I think MiB had it right that Teddy's just there to be the loser. Although I am curious what his character is supposed to be. Dolores said he's not a cowboy and the madam implied he leaves a trail of bodies behind him.

Not sure who sent Dolores to dig up that gun or why, but it was a man's voice. Another mystery we'll have to wait and see. Which is fine as I mostly like to go along for the ride and just see what happens.

Prediction- Ford's storyline that he alludes to at the end is going to be the android revolution. But it's going to go badly and out of control. Because there are already self-aware androids forming a resistance.

I think the MiB is exactly what he seems to be- a longtime "power player", possibly even some kind of earlier partner in Delos. There is some kind of relationship there.

Not sure what the maze is...but thinking it might be some kind of enclave of self-aware androids. That the MiB wants to eliminate, maybe? There are at least three androids that we've seen that know about it, and it is not in the script, so to speak. The black cross is probably a marker- the girl said "where the serpent lays eggs", and we saw a rattlesnake very clearly there...and Ford told the kid (who turned out to be an android) to not come back there.

Interesting touch that Maeve had MRSA (a staph infection)...they are biological and subject to biological pathogens, it seems.

Another thought...is "The Original" Dolores or MiB?

Remember, MiB bin the Crichton film is definitely not human.

Got to see episode 2 last night, and it sparked a big conversation with my son.

Normally I don't look too deeply at this stuff, but from an 'entertainment design' perspective (of Westworld the park, not Westworld the show) it's starting to bother me. Forgetting about the sex part - where's the entertainment value? If you know you're invulnerable and there are no consequences for actions, is it fun? Fun for most people, I mean, leaving out the psychopaths/sadists?

For example, there was the scene with the outlaw going back to his town, and the menacing posse of all his cousins coming out. Well, as a guest, what am I worried about? I can just stand there and take them all out. Maybe I'll hide behind a rock just for fun, but what's the point? Even if you can't get hurt/die there need to be some consequences, otherwise I just don't see how it works.

We talked about haunted houses as a counter-example - people get scared, even though they know that it's all fake and the actors can't touch them/hurt them. So maybe WW could create that type of emotional response, but I think it's harder over a long period of time.

Plus if everyone went into a haunted house with a gun that could kill all the robot actors and they knew they couldn't get hurt, I think no one would be scared. It would be completely different.

WW needs some kind of consequences - maybe your bill goes up each time you would've gotten shot or something. I don't know.

And I know you just need to 'go with the flow', but how do the knives work? I understand how (theoretically) you could make a fancy gun that won't shoot a human, but I'm not getting the knives.

Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying the show and think they're doing a great job setting it up. But these little things are starting to annoy me.

I'm enjoying it, but Westworld as fun has the problem that englestein is mentioning above. For example, In a lot of MMOs they will throw you off an RP server if you're not role playing. If I spend $5000/day to play Cowboys and Indians, I might be pissed if some jerkass runs around shooting townsfolk while yelling "Best vacation EVAR!!!". I also still think the Wild West might not be as popular these days as MedievalWorld, RomanWorld, or FantasyWorld (if you can pull it off).

If they can get a staph infection...what about STDs?

How much does admission cost, and does that cover the ostensibly millions of dollars of damage any given guest will incur?

How in the world would they be able to provide guests with bespoke tailoring that they may or may not even choose? Do they just retailor the unused clothes?

Does Westworld adhere to state/county ordinances regarding prostitution? Gun laws?

Is Westworld even on Earth?

How is it "immersive" when you can just randomly shoot a dude and there's no sheriff turning up to arrest you?

Why in the world would anyone take a child to Westworld when it is pretty clearly an adults only kind of thing?

Is it like old MMORPGs where you have big groups of people clomped around quest-dispensing NPCS and then you go out and have to wait in line to perform tasks?

How can there be any kind of narrative continuity when someone can just shoot a host that is key to a storyline dead? What happens if you go out on the treasure hunt, decapitate the old man, and decide to blow up Sweetwater? What happens to other guests playing that same story?

Why do they wait until you are at the park to ask you disqualifying medical questions?

How long is the waiver you have to sign to go to Westworld?

Does anyone realize that Beetee is working for Delos? Does this story happen before or after The Hunger Games?

Is there a refund policy?

Is the daily operating cost of Westworld equal to or greater than the GNP of the whole world?

Yeah, yeah, I'm overthinking it. There's a good story in there trying to claw out of it, though.

@engelstein--it looks and seems real though, and that's enough to get the blood pumping for (most) folks. All these VR games are coming out, and I know I'm not literally on a rollercoaster, but my brain woulds struggle to keep up with that reality. How much more would this be true in WestWorld? Just like any other game, some folks are there for the role-playing, other folks are griefers. I play OVERWATCH and I have seen folks reluctant to pick characters that don't work in a story sense for the same team, and I have seen folks set up teammate teleporters that launch people off a cliff. It's all part of the game. What seems nice about WestWorld is that you can get away form the griefers if you want.

They might also limit the ammunition--make it tougher to really be a shitheel. Not to mention this isn't like GTA--you as a real person don't have infinite stamina--you need to get from place to place and eat and take shits and sprain your ankle and all that. You can be a criminal asshole in WestWorld, but you're still a human being. Maybe they do try to arrest you--maybe you can spend time in jail. The MiB can stab his way out of a lot of fights, but a slob like me would probably cut myself to ribbons. I'd be in the pokey.

They probably sell a bumper sticker at the gift shop- "I went to Westworld and got locked the fuck up"

Right now my theory is that Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins' character) has been working to create an AI this entire time. In fact his purpose for building the park in the first place (probably not the corporation's purpose) was to build an AI. The fact that the robots' memories do not get completely overwritten when they are reconfigured is no accident: he designed the system this way in order to build up a huge source of interactions for machine learning. Now the "revery glitch" is where he has actually, finally turned on the machine learning. The AI may turn out to be the park itself, with the individual robots acting as components of the neural network.

Oh, and the flies are in on it somehow.